VidyaLakshmi portal for Education loan – Application procedure (2019)

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VidyaLakshmi portal for education loan is an education loan information and application gateway for students planning to study abroad or in India. It was started on August 15, 2015, by the Finance Ministry of India. VidyaLakshmi portal for education loan is supported by Government of India with 40 banks registered with it.

Currently, 77 education loan schemes are provided by VidyaLakshmi portal for education loan. The student should register on the website and log in using the registered ID and password. Next, the applicant should fill up the Common Education Loan Application Form (CELAF), the form is accepted by all registered banks. After completion and submission of the form, the student can search among the various Vidya Lakshmi education loan schemes that are provided. You can then choose the loan scheme suited to your profile and apply for that educational loan.

You are allowed to apply to the utmost 3 banks through VidyaLakshmi portal for education loan. You can track the status of your application via the portal. If the status states ‘on hold’, it means more information is to be provided by you in order for the loan application to be processed and sanctioned. Also, in case your application is rejected you can directly contact the concerned bank.

Drawbacks:

VidyaLakshmi is primarily made to handle huge volumes of domestic education loans in India along with overseas education loan. Hence, even though there is a low volume of overseas education loans compared to domestic ones, your international loan application still gets into the infinite queue of “Wait” due to a large number of Indian study loans.

Author’s Experience with VidyaLakshmi Portal:

To generate feedback for users, I filled the application form on VidyaLakshmi portal and applied to 3 banks- State Bank of India, Canara Bank, and Axis Bank. It has been 22 days since then but there has been no follow-up from any of the banks. Also, I haven’t received any email that states the further steps on how to proceed with the process. The government of India did try to digitalize the education loan application for customer’s ease and help them track their application but for conventional banks, there is still a long way to adopt digitalization.

Alternate option: WeMakeScholars (WMS) is an organisation funded and supported by the Ministry of IT, Government of India that focuses only on International Education. As WMS is authorized by more than 10 banks including State Bank of India and other public banks, it might be a good alternative if you are specifically looking for an overseas education loan. WMS also have NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company) options for students who are looking for unsecured loans (i.e. without collateral security). To apply, all you need is to either request a call back or fill out some information. This will help WMS to list out the best banks suited for you and then you can choose to apply to as many banks as you wish to. The loan application procedure is pretty simple and much alike VidyaLakshmi portal for education loan but definitely more responsive. You may apply here.